Documentation of Learning

Table of Contents:

DOL Week 1 Reflection Class September 8 due September 16

DOL Week 2 Reflection Class September 15 due September 23

DOL Week 3 Reflection Class September 22 due September 30

DOL Week 4 Reflection Class September 29 due October 7

DOL Week 5 Reflection Class October 6 due October 14

DOL Week 6 Reflection Class October 13 due October 21

DOL Week 7 Reflection Class October 20 due October 28

DOL Week 8 Reflection Class October 27 due November 4

DOL Week 1 Second Semester

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5

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9

Multiliteracies

DOL For September 8 Due September 16th

This week I wanted to reflect on multiliteracies as it stood out to me. In the picture above, there is a brain with two sides. One side being a brain, and the other being a heart, which represents that the brain is the heart of learning. On the left (more logical side) shows a motherboard in the background and on the right (more creative side) shows paint splatter. This symbolizes that everyones brain is different, even when it comes to learning and understanding. Some students prefer strictly reading and writing where as others might need images and music to help learn. This is relevant as a teacher because students’ brains do not always work the same, and implementing multimodal literacy allows and acknowledges that students are not literate to one type of literacy.

Being literate in a more traditional sense means to be able to read and write in your native language, which can be problematic as it limits those who are not as efficient in reading and writing compared to others.Things like print, image, music, and speech play an important role when it comes to alternate teaching methods and should not be left out of teaching language arts. Examples of multimodal literacy would be a website, where it has images, words and maybe even sound effects. This would be a great resource while teaching as it provides a helping hand for some.

Grouping Learners

DOL For September 15 Due September 23rd

I chose this picture of students working together in a group setting to emphasize cooperative learning. This type of learning allows for children to get into pairs or groups and do activities to help strengthen their ideas in, for example: a poem. One activity the textbook calls for is a type of peer tutoring. For example, one student will read a poem out loud and the group will come up with interpretations of what they think the poem means. This way, cooperative learning can be graded on a group basis rather than an individual one. This makes the educators job easier for planning and implementing lessons since the groups are usually divided on similar aspects such as skill or grades.

I thought touching on this type of learning was important because it is a fun and important way to learn in a classroom. Grouping learners helps with daily planning for a teacher, and benefits the students. Collaborative work is proven to increase the exchange of ideas (Gillies & Boyle, 2006), self-esteem (Miller, Topping, and Thurston, 2010), and confirmation of understanding (Evans & Moore, 2013) between learners.

Phonology: Phonemic Awareness and Elkonin Boxes

DOL Week 3 For September 22 due September 30

Understanding Phonemes (or sounds) will help early literacy learners about how to pronounce and write words. Using Elkonin Boxes is a great way to assess understanding and further develop an expansion of learning. In relation to books and reading aloud, this helps young learners how to conceptualize words on a page. According to Ontario Ministry of Education (2003), Phonics refers to “the sounds they hear with the print they see on the page in order to make meaning.” This helps with the students Phonemic Awareness which is auditory understanding that is developed at a very early age as long as the child is being talked to regardless of if they can speak or not, and this helps the child conceptualize sounds in relation to reading and words.

An activity to help strengthen the child’s understanding of spelling and auditory sounds is by using Elkonin Boxes which allows the child to split a word into sounds. For example, the word sheep can be split into three sounds sh/ee/pa. The student will put some form of marker into each box that is being used for sound. This can get children to become aware of words with different pronunciation and can also be good for assessment as, of, and for learning.

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: Word Wall

DOL Week 4 For September 29 due October 7

Phonetics (sounds) play a big role in understanding words and vocabulary. In our daily lives we can see it is very important to how to pronounces words since talking is an essential part of communication, thinking and learning. We often use talk as it pertains to communicating thoughts, questions, opinions, and ideas. This is how young learners are going to be able to communicate their understanding of their learning. Using word walls will help students out when it comes to words that might not be spelled the same as they are pronounced phonetically. For example, half. This word is pronounced ha/f but is spelled with an l. This can help our young learners learn that some words are not often spelled the way they are pronounced and this visualization will help them memorize words that do this. This strengthens their understanding of vocabulary and might help them flow much better when they read.

The picture above is an example of what a word wall could look like in. classroom, its purpose is for referencing. According to Bainbridge and Heydon (2017) “Learning opportunities need to be at an appropriate level of difficulty. Many learners experience daily frustration in the classroom and are unable to engage in reading learning opportunities because they cannot complete tasks that are too challenging for them.”
If this is the case, word walls can be used to solidify the child’s vocabulary, especially when some words are very common. This is because they should be words students will be saying in speech or writing down in their notebook and activities.

Pedagogical Strategic Reading: KWL Charts

DOL Week 5 For October 6 due October 14

I chose to focus on KWL charts as an example of pedagogical strategic reading. Instructional components that can foster strategic reading in all students. KWL Charts is a perfect example of this. With the use of informational texts, we can ask our students what they know, want to learn and what they learned during and after reading. When we ask these questions, it fosters a learning community for the students to share their knowledge and grow upon it. Using KWL charts can support comprehending (ongoing learning) and encourage comprehension (understanding of knowledge). This is important to differentiate as they do mean different things. KWL charts can foster a community of learning as you can use it in many different contexts. Independent reading, shared reading, or guided reading are some options you may implement KWL charts in a student’s learning.

The picture above is just an example of how a KWL chart is structures. You can use full sentences or bullet points, so long as it highlights a student’s comprehending/comprehension. It is to note that KWL charts focus more on the aspect of comprehending than comprehension but ultimately builds up to full comprehension of the informational texts they have read. This is an overall expectation in the Ontario Language Curriculum as “areas for improvement.”

When introducing students to books and language arts, making sure they are in the mindset to absorb the knowledge they will be reading or listening to is crucial. This is so that they are able to comprehend what they are doing. Doing Semantic Webs is a good way to start a Minds-On activity. Semantic webs help with the activation of knowledge before reading, construct relationships among words and concepts/ideas, and can relate information to prior knowledge and get to an understanding of where your students are. This can foster brainstorming methods and practices that can ultimately allows students to "delve deeply into the big
ideas".

The picture above is an example of a semantic web and can be as big or as small as you want, as long as it accommodates to your students knowledge and gives a good representation of what your students know about certain concepts and ideas.

Semantic Webs: To Support Comprehension

DOL Week 6 Reflection Class October 13 due October 21

Language Arts Placement Reflection

During my placement I taught a good chunk of Language Arts. The way my class works was that I would teach Math Language and Religion in the first half of the day, and once lunchtime ended, I would teach math to two different classrooms. SO there was about one class for language per day IF that. But to reflect on my lessons, I taught about fables, procedural writing, and writing letters. I felt that my 5/6 students were not very strong in language. Not to say this in judgment, but their attention to detail and explanations sometimes were not always meeting the expectations. I had to sometimes hold their hands through the lesson for it to really stick with them, which is ok. Toward the end of the week, they seemed to understand and get better with their writing and achieving the learning goals for each lesson. Overall Language is probably the more fun types of subjects to teach and I had a good time teaching it to my 5 and 6s.